Touched by an Angel: Cajuns Shut Out Hokies, 2-0

When you face someone's Friday night ace, you had better have an ace of your own.

And for Louisiana, that's righthander Connor Angel.

The righthander stymied Virginia Tech for 7.1 shutout innings and the Cajuns' bullpen did the rest as Louisiana shut out Virginia Tech 2-0 Friday night at M. L. "Tigue" Moore Field at Russo Park.

Angel allowed only one base runner past first base in his first seven innings of work in his three hit, one walk, seven strikeout performance.  He left with one out in the eighth after giving up a single to Reagan Teegarden. Jacob Schultz came in and walked two batters to load the bases, but struck out Brennan Reback and got Carson Taylor on a fly ball to right.

Connor Cooke came on after a leadoff walk and retired all three batters he faced for his second save of the season.

Louisiana (2-4) got both of their runs in the fifth inning, thanks to some shoddy defense by the visitors.  Jonathan Windham led off with a single and Colton Frank bunted and runners wound up at second and third when third baseman Kevin Madden threw the ball away.  Sebastian Toro then grounded back to pitcher Chris Gerard (0-1) and his throw to first base went awry, scoring Windham and sending runners to second and third.  After Connor Dupuy struck out, pinch hitter Julian Brock reached on a fielder's choice with Frank being thrown out at the plate, pinch hitter Gavin Bourgeois laced a single to center to score Toro for the final run of the game.

Gerard was outstanding for the Hokies (1-3) as he allowed two unearned runs on three hits in seven innings of work.  He walked only one and struck out 12, but was saddled with the loss.

The only runner to get past first base against Angel was in the sixth when Teegarden walked, went to second on a wild pitch and to third on a groundout.  But Angel struck out the next two batters to keep the runner at third base.

Louisiana and Virginia Tech will play the second game of their series Saturday afternoon at 2:00 pm.  The game can be heard on 96.5 KPEL-FM beginning at 1:30 with Scott Prather and Greg Larnerd on the call.